1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer-implemented methods, systems and network architectures for diagramming and remotely manipulating flows, processes, schema definitions, hierarchical and linear relationships or any other business object through a thin client.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current trends appear to favor self-service applications in which users can remotely log onto a Web application and carry out various operations. Such self-service Web applications allow employees to, for example, check their accumulated vacation time, allow customers to request refunds or returns and carry out like functions without human intervention. Conventionally, however, manipulating complex workflows, processes, schema definitions, hierarchical and linear relationships and like business objects through a web application has required that the user be technically savvy and required that a number of plug-ins be added to the browser to handle the graphic, control and/or data handling requirements of such applications. Such plug-in software modules may be difficult, time consuming and costly for IT departments to maintain over a larger network. Moreover, although many graphical programs exist to create a representation of such processes, the representations that these applications generate are mostly just that: representations and pictures. These representations generally do not have any functionality beyond providing the user with a graphical image of the underlying business objects such as a flowchart, a workflow, etc. Such images generally do not affect or have any connection to the underlying business logic, as stored in a business object layer including, for example, a database. For example, deleting a particular branch of a hierarchy that is graphically represented does not conventionally affect any other business logic associated with that hierarchy, as it is only the representation of the hierarchy that has changed, and not any logic coupled thereto.
For example, an employee hired might be represented as a new branch in a graphical representation of the company's managerial hierarchy. However, adding such a new branch in a graphical representation of the company's hierarchy does not, in itself, trigger additional logic and events in the company's database. For example, adding a representation of a new hire to a graphical representation of the company's hierarchy does not conventionally trigger the creation and/or execution of business logic to order equipment for the new hire, hook up his or her network connection or send an email to the new hire's supervisor, for example.
From the foregoing, it may be appreciated that what are needed are methods and systems that would allow users to create and modify graphical representations of business processes, logic and flows and to cause such representations to affect the business logic and objects represented by such graphical representations. What are also needed are methods and systems for carrying out such functionality in a thin client environment that implements, for example, a Web browser while minimizing the round trip delays for the transmission of control information and data between the thin client and the server.